Punctuation

[GrandDesespoir]

AIBU to wonder why people make up their own personal rules for punctuation when this usually only has the effect of obfuscating what they're trying to say? (NB I'm not talking about established writers who have done this like James Joyce and e e cummings.)

I'm thinking of things like random spaces before exclamation or question marks, unnecessary capital letters, words in quotation marks when they have no need to be, and (my pet peeve) completely eshewing punctuation in favour of an ersatz stream-of-consciousness style with loosely-connected (or completely incoherent) thoughts separated by an indiscriminate number of dots.

Nobody suddenly decides they're going to start writing 1.2 when they actually mean 12, or 3 x 3 = 6 when they mean 3 + 3, so why do some people apparently think they should use punctuation differently to everybody else?

I like ... too.

Perhaps the posters who have each made their point about a dozen times could drop it now?

And I didn't answer my own, completely genuine, question by missing out a letter in a word or writing 'to' instead of 'from'. I'm not sure how many times I have to say that I'm not referring to simple errors in punctuation, or to lazy punctuation, but to people who form their own idiosyncratic writing styles for no apparent reason.

That and 'onomatopoeic' - they're just such fabulous words to say! (And my DH drunkenly lost £20 in a bet on our first date as he swore I had made 'sesquipedalian' up...)

We could possibly be one FenellaMaxwellsPony.

To confirm: what are your feeling on the semicolons?

OP does have a point.

At last!

I agree OP; and there's a lot of overly defensive posts on here! For example, I find a lot of right-wing social media posts separate groups of words with,,, and do that thing of ,, leaving spaces before punctuation marks ! It's quite odd how consistently it happens - perhaps some correlation with age, and use of technology?
And one friend who always posts anything ending in an 's' (so plurals or possessives) with a space before the 's' like 'look mummy s taken the car and it s broken handbrake to the garage'

Well, why shouldn't they? You mention e e cummings and James Joyce, and I am going include DH Lawrence in terms of idiosyncratic style and say you aren't talking about established writers, but they weren't born established writers and developed their styles themselves before they became so. Language, grammar and punctuation are not a static construct - they are ever evolving, and people who are considered established writers with idiosyncratic styles are now part of the Canon, in the same way that the changes in punctuation you are bristling about might enter into common parlance in years to come. That's the beauty of language - in many ways it's like a living creature.

Apologies - I meant "you say you aren't talking about established writers..."

Teething babies do little for one's turn of phrase!

Tizzy - I mainly view them with nostalgia. I think in modern style they're being pretty much replaced by the hyphen. But they make an excellent winky face in a text message....

Fenella - yes, fair point.

Your choice of language in your OP has made you sound like you have a bit of a superiority complex.

mrsroboto - both of your examples are the type of thing I had in mind.

mrsroboto
I don't particularly 'get' these 'youneeq' ways of writing.I just can't bring myself to care that much.

THeRE wAS A phaSe A fEw yEaRs baCk wHere AdDInG StUpID capItALs tO oDD LetTeRs. It looks ridiculous, but life's too short.

Unfortunately, the slightly verbose writing in the OP instantly set the tone of the thread as I'm so educated. Why do these idiots try to be unique in their own typing when they could be as idiosyncratic as me by using lots of long words that don't add anything
And here's hoping any challenge of excessively verbose writing doesn't come back as 'this is just inverse snobbery'. It's not. Just intelligent people know when/how to use their vocabularies.

I've attempted a redraft of the OP:

I don't understand why people sometimes seem to make up their own rules for punctuation - my boss quite often puts an extra space before punctuation marks, for example. It makes text hard to understand - can anyone hazard a guess as to why this is done?

There. I think that is what you meant?

Fenella that's a fair point but I'm afraid I very much doubt that the majority of people using grammar and punctuation incorrectly are doing for any reason other than they don't know the correct usage. Joyce was deliberately looking to challenge linguistic convention, wasn't he? That's a very different thing from not even knowing what that convention is in the first place.

Seriously, Smile? You've come back to my thread again to 'redraft my OP' and remind everyone again how I fail at life generally whereas you're right about everything, and I'm the one with the superiority complex?

Agree with Tizzy, ... is a perfectly acceptable device called ellipsis.

My DCs learned it in Foundation Stage as it is often used to build suspense in children's literature and the teacher explained it to them.

I must confess to being a grammar pedant myself... (That ellipsis I've just used does not create suspense. I think I'm saying "Think about that for a second before reading on")
I think we all see so many examples of incorrect usage these days that they go into our subconscious and sometimes we are no longer sure what is right and wrong.

So why do some people consistently leave a space before puncuation marks? Or separate every thought/sentence with three or four dots? I've seen both of these several times - perhaps they've all copied from the same source; who knows...?

Maybe their phone is set to leave a space before punctuation (that's correct in French and Spanish, for example).

Ellipses (...) who knows. There is a place for ellipses but it's best not to overuse them.

(I don't agree with your use of a semi-colon above, BTW. What's your reasoning behind that?)

Different from/to - see en.oxforddictionaries.com/usage/different-from-than-or-to for a good guide to use.

A PP mentioned being unsure about grammar/punctuation. If you want to improve your grammar/aren't sure about grammar, I recommend the following books:

Bill Bryson - Troublesome Words
The Penguin Guide to Punctuation by R. L. Trask (paperback, Penguin Reference Books, 1997)
June Casagrande - It was the best of sentences, it was the worst of sentences

Errr......

I'm sorry you interpreted my post that way, OP, that wasn't my intention.

unnecessary capital letters

Maybe they work in government where Every Important Word Must Be Capitalised? I agree it looks crap.

words in quotation marks when they have no need to be

Are they using scare quotes (quotation marks placed round a word or phrase to draw attention to an unusual or arguably inaccurate use)?

stream-of-consciousness style with loosely-connected (or completely incoherent) thoughts separated by an indiscriminate number of dots.

Lack of education/knowledge, probably.

River quite possibly people aren't sure how to use it properly and that's fine too, the OP asked why people do it deliberately, however?

(I don't agree with your use of a semi-colon above, BTW. What's your reasoning behind that?)

I suppose I wanted to convey a bit more "space" than just a comma, without starting a new sentence. I think semi-colons (and possibly colons) can be contentious. Wasn't it Martin Amis or someone who always avoided them for that reason?

Just had to come and have a look at this as it is all over Twitter!

Fair points made but the tone of the post is far too pretentious so the user should not fee any surprise at the feedback; particularly with the spelling mistake and language used in their further posts 🤣

GrandDesespoir You haven't been on Mumsnet for long..."my bad" is one of our pet hates.